


Yellow Shores

by coshaymien



Category: Smosh
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Gen, One Shot, Online Dating, Pride, Sexuality Crisis, Smosh Community Writing Competition, and i don't like hugging, damien deserves a hug - thanks for coming to my ted talk, i just could relate to his anxiety towards dating and i'm like ace and BAM this happened, i just really really wanna hug him that's all, so soft so pure, soft boi dames, too pure for this cruel world honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-12 01:11:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coshaymien/pseuds/coshaymien
Summary: After his friend is fed up of him being perpetually single, Damien tries to navigate the online dating world, and as a result, he finally starts figuring out something about himself. And it's finally something that he shouldn't feel bad about.





	Yellow Shores

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: swearing & mature language.

Damien was about to take a walk as Southern California in May was one of his favorite things in the world, and unwind after a Sunday stream, just as he would finish feeding the geese, but his telephone beeped, notifying him of a text message.

_Dude, what’s that chef’s name, y’know, the one who works for Mythical?_

He looked up to see it was Shayne.

_I think it was Josh? I’m not 100% sure, though._

_Ding ding ding, now that you’re used to our new company enough to know his name it’s time for you to find a lady to go out withhhhhhhhh_

Damien groaned. He completely forgot that he promised his friend to get back into dating again. To be fair, Smosh being under a new company was just an excuse, a hope that Shayne would forget his word. _I should be grateful, not everyone’s best friend would care so much and check in so often. I guess,_ he thought.

_Ughhh, do I really have to? How do I even do that?_

  
_Dude, I know I'm bad but compared to you, I might bag myself Kathy Bates soon_  
_Idk, get a Tinder or Bumble or smth_  
_I know you’re against it_  
_But this is an intervention bc I KNOW you won’t be even LOOKING at girls in real life if you don't_  
_And everyone’s doing online dating thing anyways_  
_You fucking GRANDPA_  
_Or a dinosaur, I can't decide which insult fits you better_  
_I’ll be down there in 20 to help you set it up so you better get installing that shit up_

Damien watched as the messages popped in, one by one, as he was opening a new packet of cat food. He should put the kettle on and install that shit up.

 

Over a span of a few weeks, Damien tried almost every Tinder strategy he could think of and yet, he was as uninterested as ever. He tried swiping right on girls that he found somewhat attractive first. The only interesting and devastating thing was that he accidentally swiped left on a girl that was the literal embodiment of his ideal woman (and he thought he didn’t have one). His excuse? Well, he was in the middle of doing a number two in the office restroom and wasn’t really paying attention. Sure, it was kind of disgusting, but he didn’t kid himself, knowing that probably a good ninety percent of the app users have done that at least once, too.

Then he started disregarding the pictures, and judging by their bios. Yet, the conversations went nowhere interesting or the girls were just way too forward for his liking. Sure, he was all for female empowerment and the disregard of gender roles, but boy, he was not ready to meet anyone in real life after a few exchanges on the app. He played around with the settings, temporarily changing the gender (he was positive that he didn’t have any homoromantic tendencies himself, let alone homosexual, but he was feeling very insecure that day. Yes, he had queer friends that he loved and cherished, but it just was not his thing) and the distance. He even tried swiping right on absolutely everyone. The highlight of that: the catfish who was using Courtney’s photos (his friend didn't find it that hilarious, though). Yet, he didn’t carry on with that for too long as he was getting some weird messages linking to their, um, private videos. Damien was sure his phone wouldn’t be the same after clicking the shortened URLs, not that he was interested in that anyway.

 

After a few weeks, just before the end of the month, and tinkering with the preferences (female, no more than 5 miles away), he found the girl he really liked previously again. He couldn’t believe his luck. Sure, she had changed her main profile picture, but it was unmistakably her. Thankfully, he now managed to swipe in the desired direction. Only then he proceeded to look through her pictures, as he was listening to his favorite local radio station, now distracting from cutting up ingredients for his salad he was looking forward to for the past few hours. Her bio read as follows:

_Katrina, 25_

_just your friendly neighborhood nutritionist who’s new in town. tbf, not looking for any romantic/sexual relationships, as i’m ineradicably ace, but i don’t have many friends here and i don’t want to be lonely, so if you’re not a perv, pls drop me a line and let's chat abt whatever :33_

He was intrigued and confused as he really didn’t understand the girl’s excuse, but it didn’t stop him from messaging her anyway - and that alone was a rare feat, that he wanted to initiate the conversation with a stranger _and_ did it. He knew the feeling of being lonely in such a big city like Los Angeles, and he was never the one to turn down an opportunity to help out someone, even if it caused him anxiety. Maybe his determination to find someone wasn’t just peer pressure from Shayne, maybe he was meant to help out somebody like her.

He deleted and rewrote his words as he was composing his message and after a few minutes, he managed to force himself to sent it:

_Hi! Sorry if it’s too personal of a question (and I won’t be trying to persuade of anything more than platonic if you don’t want that), but what do you mean by /ineradicably ace/? In your bio, I mean._

He waited for a few minutes for a response, but not seeing the dots appear on his screen after a while, he just shut his screen off and proceeded with his day, not thinking much of it.

He went back to his phone just before the sun outside started becoming brighter for the dusk, as he was pretty much finished with all his chores and the only thing left to do was to start going to bed and everything that went with it: a quick shower, brushing his teeth, making his bed, trivial things like that. To someone else they might indeed look trivial, but they were his particular rituals and he really didn’t like breaking them, as sticking to them just helped with his mental state and made him content and less anxious.

 

It appeared that Katrina replied, and not too long ago, which was nice. Maybe he could still catch her online to speed up the conversation, he wasn't that busy and he didn’t have an early call on set tomorrow anyway, so he could stay up. He had a couple other replies there too, but he would probably get to it later; the conversations didn’t really go anywhere so he didn’t feel that guilty ignoring them.

_oh hello, damien! yh sure, no problem - it’s actually nice seeing anyone not interested to convince me i haven’t been fucked well enough… oh shit, that’s probably tmi. sorry bout that. so essentially i’m asexual, and i’m p sure i’m aromantic, too. which means i don’t usually feel any sexual or romantic attraction to ppl (just as heteros are interested in opposite sex, homos in the same, etc.), and by usually i mean virtually never, but shit happens. sooo it's only ever platonic or aesthetic attraction i feel. in my case it’s mostly fictional characters though or just my hormones going wild when i don't take my pills lol. feel free to ask any more questions if i didn’t scare you by oversharing already (sorry again). it’s almost pride month too, sooo I kinda feel obliged to explain shit_

Damien was shocked.

Not that the girl he found aesthetically pleasing couldn’t ever find him attractive in any meaningful way nor that she seemed to overshare quite a bit. _Meaningful_ , he even scoffed at his own thoughts. Not like he could even manage anything like that himself. _You're a hypocritical dum-dum, Damien Haas, you know that, right?_ No, he was shocked, because finally something made sense. About himself. About the way he felt, the way he interacted with the people around him, his past girlfriends. He never had an amicable breakup, he was always the dumpee, not the dumper, and constantly accused of being a horrific boyfriend.

_Wow, I feel bad for being so ignorant. I never knew that word even existed, or if I’ve heard it somewhere, I really didn’t bat an eye… Not that it doesn’t make sense, in fact, to me it makes complete sense, it’s just weird that it’s not widely known. Or it is and it’s just me who has been living under a rock?_

He typed swiftly, his hands slightly shaking. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, to label himself without fully understanding what it meant, but _boy_ , did it make sense. Did it ever.

Thankfully, Katrina appeared to be online, as the dots popped up on the screen momentarily, and Damien had to take a seat on the end of his bed, it still being covered by a throw blanket.

_oh my gawwwd i cannot believe someone outside the ace community actually cares… i’m lowkey freaking out lol. you’re not really ignorant though, it says on the internet that only around 1% of ppl are asexual, but considering how sex-driven our society seems to be and how little ppl know abt it, i’d dare to assume there are more, esp. w gen z being more aware than anyone of various orientations (and the stats are like super old), or maybe like the older folks,, they just don’t know it or are afraid to be mocked after they come out if they do. i’ve been for the longest time, for not having a relationship, despite me not even wanting one, etc. idk, compared to everyone else, we’re kinda alone in a gray area. oh, and graysexuals - also a thing. basically the same, but can develop sexual feelings after more of a long-term companionship_

_Well, about being outside the ace community thing, though…_

Damien wanted to cry as he dreadfully hit send, and closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Thankfully, Freyja was close enough, having jumped on the bed, as he felt her tail fur brush against his forearm, and he lifted his heavy eyelids, picked her up, putting her in his arms and started petting her, trying to calm himself down. Was this it? The kind of convoluted explanation why was he so terrible as a romantic partner or even a single man in the dating scene? The reason why he felt awkward and in some ways deceiving for even installing Tinder in the first place?

_dude, my boy, damien… are you fr? bc i feel bad that you’re finding this abt yourself from a total stranger on the internet… and i’d feel awkward to suggest i come over to comfort you if you’re alone?_

_No need to feel awkward or bad, I’m not alone. Well, that's not totally true, I only have my cats, but I’ll manage. ;) Don't want it to make it awkward, and I don't enjoy meeting strangers myself, like, straight away. And I am for real. Actually, this really helped, believe it or not… Sure, I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything, I’ll need to do more reading, not to disregard your viewpoint, of course, no offence…_

_none taken ;) i’m realllly glad if it helps you in any way at all. as i said, a lot of people don’t even know it’s a thing, and i imagine i can be weird but also cathartic to find out that the way you’ve been feeling isn’t actually abnormal and you don’t need to be in a relationship and stay silent and follow the society’s rules of how you’re supposed to love_

_You know what, there’s one more thing you could help me with and not be too awkward (at least, I hope so). I have some stuff to take care of, but please call me in 10 minutes, I should be done by then._

He also attached his phone number in the following message and went on to finish off his nightly rituals that may or may not help him fall asleep with more ease (at least he believed they did, and that’s half the battle already), before lighting up a candle on his nightstand and lying down, having stripped to his underwear (his usual sleepwear), just seconds after, his phone rang, an unknown number, but he felt like he knew who it was.

“Katrina?” he inquired, having answered the call.

“Please, call me Kat,” he could almost her smile over the phone, her voice had some peculiarly pleasant warmth in it.

"Well then, Kat, you can call me Dames." He turned off the lamp next to his bed, leaving only a candle to dimly lit up the room from the nightstand, and after a few hours of chatting and cuddling with the geese under the covers, he drifted off to sleep. He hasn't slept that well in years.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt inspired after listening SmoshCast with Ian, Shayne and Damien (which was BOI, so sad), and not finding many coming-out or ace-related Smosh fics, I decided to correct the situation with this one-shot I had named 'dames is a soft ace boi' whilst I was writing and editing it on Google Drive in honour of Pride Month (I'm also submitting this for Smosh Community Writing Challenge as I feel like this vaguely follows the prompt)! From personal experience, I know asexuality is a really difficult subject to come to terms with, so if you have any doubts, unresolved feelings, anything of that kind and you feel like speaking up or just straight-up venting, you can always safely rant to me, and I'll be very glad to listen so don't hesitate to reach out!


End file.
